


to be alone with you

by AlphaBanana



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:20:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 7,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27489502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaBanana/pseuds/AlphaBanana
Summary: November Writing prompts with Mason and Detective Riona LovelaceNot all chapters fit the Explicit rating
Relationships: Detective/Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles), Female Detective/Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 50





	1. November 1st: Cornered

Mason is being tortured. He knows this, because his senses are on fire and there is no cooling water to douse them.

Mason hates parties.

What’s worse, is that both Agent Lovelace _and_ Captain Sung have told him that, as Detective of Wayhaven, Riona is supposed to be here in a professional capacity, rubbing shoulders with bigwigs and soothing the myriad anxieties of the townsfolk.

_“You don’t have to come.” Riona told him softly as he stood behind her in the mirror doing his tie as loosely as he could get away with while she tried to tame her curls. “It’s going to be loud.”_

_He leaned down to place his lips at the shell of her ear, which was always enough to make her shiver even without the rumble of his voice. “I like loud…sometimes.”_

_“Mason…”_

_But then his fingers had turned her face to his and he had captured her lips, and suddenly her protests were half a world away as she took the lead, licking deep into his mouth like she owned it._

They had been a little late already.

Agent Lovelace’s raised eyebrows and Captain Sung looking _pissed_ had made Riona mouth an apology and untangle her hand from his, and just like that he is alone, adrift in a sea of humanity without a life-raft.

Riona, though, is in her element. Well-practised poise and honeyed voice aid her as she circulates around the room, never staying too long with one person or group. She is always moving on, on, on, and she is like a dancer, graceful and charming and so very, _very_ beautiful. He isn’t sure why she has allowed herself to be moored to him, when she could be sailing the seven seas with any number of handsome billionaires. At present, he doesn’t _care_ why.

People try and talk to him, of course. That’s the point of these functions. But when he can barely tear his eyes from Riona’s curves as she weaves in and out of the crowd, they don’t stand a chance of getting his attention, let alone keeping it beyond a few grunts.

“She’s a fine Detective.” Captain Sung’s voice is at his shoulder now, and Mason forces himself to turn slightly to look the older(-looking) man in the eye.

“She is.” Mason lets a little of his usually well-hidden pride bleed into his words, and he doesn’t miss Sung’s soft smile.

“Rook was a good man, but God if he wasn’t a nightmare on the force. Always haring off chasing some hunch.” This is the most that Mason has ever heard about Rook, seeing as Rebecca didn’t even mention that he or Riona had existed, and the idea that he was as flawed as the next person is compelling. “But Riona – she has a good head on her shoulders.”

Sung looks back to Riona then, with a little alarm and more than a little disapproval in his eyes.

“Most of the time.”

Mason looks up again to see Riona, and he can hear her heart race from here (and _not_ for the reasons he likes).

Bobby fucking Marks has her cornered, and is leaning in with what could pass for a smile on irritatingly lush lips.

Mason is moving before he knows what he is doing, ignoring Rebecca’s warning (half-hearted though it is, and he makes a mental note to ask why she _hates_ the journalist so) and going to stand where he should have been all evening. _By her side_.

He had _intended_ to be a form of moral support, nothing more – to appear as a supportive colleague to the nosy local dignitaries who took a mildly perverse interest in Riona’s romantic life.

His good intentions wither into nothing when she pulls him by the collar to kiss him, hard and deep, and it is all he can do not to corner her against the wall himself and ravish her. But with Rebecca boring holes into his back, he pulls away slightly to see the mischief and the _gratitude_ in the hazel eyes he loves, and suddenly whatever ripples the kiss might have caused seem far away.

“Goodbye, Bobby.” Riona’s voice is sweet and dark like treacle and just a little triumphant, and a small, warm hand curls into the crook of Mason’s arm, where he traps it under his own, letting callouses rub over soft, smooth skin.

And that is how they stay for the rest of the evening, long after Bobby fucking Marks leaves with his tail between his legs.


	2. November 2nd: Dream

_She is a fly on the wall, flitting around a place that looks like it belongs in a Batman movie and God, the **smell** —_

_When the scene settles, she is almost on the ceiling, looking down at a room with a man in a lab coat circling a man chained at the neck, head bowed in submission. Whatever the scientist is holding in his right hand, whatever he’s saying, doesn’t matter as he grips the patient by matted black locks, forces his head back and—_

_And it’s **Mason** , bloodstained and bruised, and grey eyes normally sparking with love and lust and **life** are dead and cold, numb to the pain until suddenly they aren’t, suddenly Mason’s whole body is writhing in agony and he is screaming for mercy in a language she doesn’t recognise._

_And the scientist **laughs** as he walks away._

_The scene changes and now Mason and RIona are together in the car park outside her apartment, she is being held around her chest by Murphy and Mason is being beaten and stabbed and drugged and she can’t get to him, she is too weak to wrestle out of the hold around her chest and she is screaming for help but none comes so instead she screams—_

“Mason!”

Riona jerks awake, and wants to scream again at the feeling of arms around her before she realises that they are _Mason’s_ , strong and firm and _warm_ , and she sobs in relief, feeling his arms tighten around her.

 _But that means_ —

“You stayed—”

Even dazed with the force of her dream, she knows her mistake as soon as she croaks out the words. She feels rather than sees him leave her bedroom, now dimly-lit by a single beside lamp to her side, and she has never felt so bereft. Tears prick at her eyes and she brushes them away. She has always known that they were just having sex – _but if that’s the case, why was he still here?_

And just like that, Mason has returned with a glass of water, which he pushes into her hands and he stares at her with a mute command as she drains the contents.

“I’ve stayed the last few times, I’m just usually gone when you wake up.” He shrugs as he gets back into bed, like those two sentences haven’t just turned her world upside down.

Riona burrows into his side gratefully when he offers it, and for a while it is just them in this moment, and she wants to bottle up the peace she feels right now and keep it forever.


	3. November 3rd: Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Mason's perspective on Chapter 2)

She always falls asleep quickly.

In the past, Mason has thought that it is because he has worn her out. That what feels like an eternity of joining and parting and _joining_ is too much for her small frame and whatever energy she brings to the act fades immediately afterwards.

But now, as she is sleeping peacefully again in the circle of his arms, he allows himself to think that maybe it is not exhaustion which lulls her to sleep, but something else. That perhaps he makes her feel as secure as she makes him. And the thought warms him more than he cares to admit, even as he struggles to process what had happened before.

_He isn’t sleeping, not really. Just watching Riona’s face relaxed in sleep, feeling her breathe against him and feeling like he is floating. He has grown to enjoy these snatched moments, taking her up on the invitation that is always there, mute in her eyes, and they sustain him even on the days where he can’t see her, or where one of them doesn’t make an excuse to see the other (which are growing few and far between)._

_He feels her change before he hears her, her muscles tensing in her sleep as if she means to lash out, and he brushes chocolate curls away from her face as her breaths turn to whimpers._

Fucking Murphy _. Mason would have been happier if they had just killed the prick, as he would have happily done the other way around – how secure were the caging facilities really? – and Mason tries to soothe her as best he can but then she speaks and he feels his heart constrict in his chest._

_“Mason—Mason, no—”_

What?

 _Whatever she has seen of Bravo, seen of_ him _, fear has never laced her voice like this with him, he has made sure of that, and he feels a little piece of his heart shatter._

_“Don’t—don’t hurt Mason, please—”_

Oh.

_Oh, sweetheart, **no**._

_Whatever she is seeing in her mind’s eye, her breath has quickened and she tries to thrash out at him (at whoever is in her dream). Then she **screams** into his chest and it is like his skin is on fire but he holds her through it all—_

Until she wakes with his name on her lips, and the relief in her eyes and in her little, broken sob makes his throat close up.

Unable to speak, he manages a small nod at her observation and instead focuses on how her voice sounds like sandpaper, and gets up to get some water and _fuck_ , he feels sick, like his heart is exploding in his chest and like his knees are made of jelly.

But, she needs him now, and that is what matters, that is all that _can_ matter.

He hopes his eyes are loud enough as he pushes the glass into her hands, and focuses on the way her muscles move in her pretty little throat to centre him while he thinks of _something_ to say, _anything_.

“I’ve stayed the last few times, I’m just usually gone when you wake up.” He shrugs, to affect a nonchalance whose absence he cannot understand, and opens his arms to her, and feels something else open for the first time, hinges groaning from disuse.

They are silent for a while, the rhythms of their hearts beating in sync, and he thinks he understands what Nate has been blathering on about what he talks about what _peace_ feels like.

And then, in another heartbeat, she is asleep again, beautiful and soft and oh, he is so very, very _lost_.


	4. November 4th: Vessel

They move together effortlessly now, and the push and pull that had seemed so frantic when they had first met has settled into a rhythm as easy as breathing.

They are vessels for each other’s love, and they give each other all they can and the more they give, the more they receive, until they overflow and start again.


	5. November 5th: Anomaly

Riona never fails to astonish Nate.

For someone with a mind like a steel trap, she fails to notice very basic signals.

_“It’s ok. I knew we’re only—well, we’re **only**.”_

She has no way of knowing this, but if Mason is “only” doing something, he usually “only” does it once. When his “onlies” with Riona become weekly _at least_ , when Nate can _hear_ them through the wall his bedroom shares with Riona’s (more or less only used for these “onlies” with Mason), when he can hear them whispering endearments into each other’s skin—

Well, he just isn’t sure how anyone could call that “only”.

_“He said he doesn’t want anything else, and that’s fine.”_

But not only is it clearly, _blatantly_ not fine, to the point where _Adam_ has noticed and furrows his brow in concern (a concern which is simply, he maintains, for the efficiency of the team), it’s also _not true_. Riona looks at Mason hopelessly on the rare occasions when he isn’t already looking at her like he wants to commit her features to memory, as if he fears she could disappear at any moment.

_“We’re fine the way we are.”_

Even she, silver-tongued as she is, cannot stick the landing on this lie, voice cracking slightly at the end, and it is enough to break Nate’s heart, since he has seen the way the Mason has been since the first patrol together, has seen him take this woman, tiny and sharp and sweet, into his heart as if he means to keep her there.

When the anomalies cease to be anomalies, then you have to analyse the pattern.


	6. November 6th: Hide

They had known when the Trappers had taken her that she was unlikely to be unharmed. Trappers needed to make sure they kept their prey alive for their bounty, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t have fun with a captive audience.

But they could not have prepared themselves for what they had found.

_“She is lucky to be alive.” Elidor informed Nate in a grave tone, watching Rebecca warily as she looked helplessly at Riona through the glass. Adam tried in vain to calm her down – how could anyone be calm at a time like this? – and instead retreated to be briefed by one of the field agents on the Trapper cell._

_“Mason?” Felix’s voice was insistent, and Mason knew the younger agent well enough to know that if Felix wanted something answered, it was usually best to comply._

_“What.”_

_“Are you—are you ok?”_

_A long pause then as Mason pondered the question (one he knew the answer to, had known when he smelt the scent of her blood in the air, but one whose answer **scared** him)._

_“No. No, I’m not.” Mason couldn’t bring himself to look at Felix then, instead standing to mirror Rebecca’s watchful pose, eyes tracing her tiny body though the glass._

_Mason felt arms wrap around his waist, and smiled weakly at Felix before returning his eyes to her._

–

_It had taken Riona nearly a month of unconsciousness to return Mason’s longing gazes._

_Adam had been understanding, had taken Mason off of normal duties and instead made him Riona’s personal protector, staying at her side even when his lack of sleep made it unwise._

_And then, one beautiful morning, she opened warm, hazel eyes at him and smiled. A weak smile, sure, but it was a **smile** , and he felt himself give one in return before calling for Elidor, who skidded round the corner. He could barely even snarl a refusal when Tuft told him to leave before Riona’s fingers had curled into his forearm and kept him there with a never-before-seen strength to match her bloody-mindedness, the stubbornness that had kept her with him._

­–

She takes a long time to mend, of course she does. She is irritatingly, beautifully human.

When she is mending, Mason is by her bedside almost every moment of the day, only leaving when Rebecca is there or when he is ordered to sleep. They talk, she laughs, and sometimes, when no-one else is about, he tests just how much she likes his voice, and tries to make the heart rate monitor spike as high as she can handle.

But today is different – there is no one else to patrol the west side of town, the others are all occupied – and he has only just returned to the Warehouse after the most boring patrol of his _life_ and—

And Tuft barrels into him and seems both relieved and fucking _terrified_ of him.

“Agent! It’s good to see you, are you well? I very much hope you are well—"

“Spit it out, Doctor.” He has a headache brewing and wants to soothe himself with Riona’s scent, _drown_ in it, and thinks that losing himself in Riona would be preferable to this, to _all_ of this.

“Riona—”

“What?” The trepidation in Tuft’s tone makes Mason’s hackles rise, and he abandons his attempt at playing nice in favour of a familiar snarl.

“Riona is missing.”

Mason’s heart is too busy seizing up, folding in on itself, to give him the strength to rage. “What—what do you mean?”

“She’s still in the Facility,” and Tuft’s hands are placating but it is not enough, cannot possibly be when Mason hears what is next, “but she’s…not in her bed, and no-one’s seen her.”

“Right.” When he feels that he can breathe, he speeds to Riona’s bed and lifts a pillow to his nose, breathing deeply and feeling the fist rummaging around in his gut stop its churning just for a moment.

When he follows her sweet scent, lightly spiced and still as enticing as the first day, to his room, he isn’t sure whether he wants to laugh, collapse, or get in with her.

_Can’t get enough of my bed, can you, sweetheart?_

Once his initial amusement has settled, he finds himself looking at her, _really_ looking, at the freckles that dust her nose, at the small scar on her eyebrow from a motorbike accident (he suspects that Bobby fucking Marks was the root of that – she goes uncharacteristically quiet and still whenever the scar is mentioned), at the lush, heavenly curves of her lips that rival those of her body.

Mason wiggles his arms underneath her and hoists her up, and she barely shifts, only nuzzling deeper into his chest. He has to fight not to cough around the tightness suddenly taking root in his throat.

He nearly drops her when her lips brush gently against his clavicle.

“Hey.” A small murmur, her usually honeyed voice still sweet but cracked, like a priceless vase someone has tried to fix with packing tape. _Fucking “hey” – as if she hadn’t just given him a heart attack._ “I was looking for you. Where did you go?”

“Doesn’t matter.” His arms tighten around her, which makes her burrow deeper into the crook of his neck, and he thinks that this must be what bliss feels like. “I’m here now.”


	7. November 7th: Smoke

Riona has grown to love the smell of smoke.

It tells her that he is coming home to her, and when he arrives and puts out his cigarette in the ashtray by the door with a solemn kind of finality before burying his nose in her hair, the odd intimacy of it makes her shiver.

She has grown to love the taste, too.

When he has been away from her for longer than a few hours, he tastes of ashes and a kind of yearning that makes her heart lurch forward in her chest, and she licks the bitterness out of his mouth and replaces it with her own sweetness.

When he is with her, Mason tastes less like cigarettes than he used to and more like chocolate on her tongue, rich and dark, and his kisses soothe an ache she hadn’t even known she _had_.

Riona has grown to love the smoke – but she still isn’t sad to see it go.


	8. November 8th: Cavity (NSFW)

Mason wakes from a mercifully dreamless sleep to his senses being assaulted by scents and sounds that he cannot untangle.

Riona is humming tunelessly in the kitchen, hair in a bun and his shirt hanging well below the swell of her ass (and _that_ feels different, seeing her in something of his, even though it’s far from the first time the little thief has stolen something of his that he isn’t sure he wants back). He stops to watch her bounce along to the music before he places both his hands on her hips and takes up his usual position behind her, feeling her shiver a little under his hands.

A teasing edge creeps into his voice as he presses his lips to her temple. “Cold, sweetheart?”

“Hmm.” At first, he doesn’t think she has heard him, caught up instead with a combination of her bloody baking and the sensation of his hands on her. Then she manages to answer.

“A little chilly, I suppose.” Her voice is almost smug and he lets his fingers press more insistently into her curves before rubbing up and down her sides, _apparently_ for warmth, smiling slightly as she squirms and a giggle bubbles up (he has discovered, not exactly by accident, that she is _fantastically_ ticklish). He lets that smile drift into a smirk when the rhythm of her heart changes, more purposeful, _driving_ , and it drives him forward to place his lips at her ear and let his breath ghost over the shell.

“Come back to bed and I’ll warm you up.” He loads his voice with a promise he _knows_ he can keep (even now, even when she grumbles at him for distracting her from her bloody baking…though he notes that she makes no effort to extricate herself from the circle of his arms) and smirks at the slight crack in her voice.

“But I’m _busy_.” She pours the thick, brown mixture into the baking tin and hums with satisfaction, apparently pleased with the concoction.

Mason feels his patience begin to wear thin, suppressing a frustrated groan. “Clear your schedule.”

“I’m almost done.” Riona doesn’t seem to be coping much better than him, fingers of her free hand interlacing with his hand at her hip, and he lets his eyes flutter shut at the feeling of her skin on his.

“Riona…” He kisses the column of her throat, before he watches her— _fuck_.

She takes a taste of the mixture, letting one finger slip behind lush lips, and she gasps at the renewed pressure of his fingertips on her hips. Her lips twist into a smirk of her own, and she offers him a fingerful of mixture with one eyebrow raised.

“I don’t do sweets, sweetheart,” and he smirks a little at the look of muted disappointment in hazel eyes, “but I’ll still take a taste.”

His lips capture hers in a motion that’s now easier than breathing ever was, and he can still taste the brownie mix on her and _fuck_ , it’s sweet enough to give him a cavity but the combination of the sugar and Riona’s own taste is heady, taking over his senses until he is _intoxicated_.

Her low moan vibrates against his lips, and it’s all he can do to stop his hips bucking against her in response, instead breaking away and raising an eyebrow in question.

Her voice is low and husky as she answers. “Suddenly, my schedule is _wide open_.” And if he remembers nothing else in his life he wants to remember the way she looks now, standing in his shirt and nothing else, hair messy and just the faintest trace of chocolate at the corner of a wicked smile.

And then her laughing yelp as he hoists her over his shoulder and takes her back to bed, brownies forgotten.


	9. November 9th: Collection

Riona feels nice in his hands, warm and soft. It almost makes up for her god-awful record collection.

To be more accurate, her _father’s_ god-awful record collection – loud and brash as he had apparently been – but she is practically vibrating along to the beat and all Mason has to do is watch, and hold, and _be_.

When she starts to pull his hands from the small of her back (well…the swell of her backside, but who cares?), he frowns in confusion, before she places one very deliberately on her waist and holds the other with a kind of reverence that borders blasphemy.

He freezes.

“Sweetheart, I don’t—” Mason’s voice is almost _panicked_ , even to his own ears, and his heart thuds painfully in his chest at the soft smile she grants him.

“Just hold me.” Her voice is soft, pitched _just_ _for him_ , and he nods with an almost uncharacteristic seriousness.

 _That_ he can do just fine.

They sway to the music, even with his two left feet, and Mason can feel her hips move with every small step, feel her breath warm the planes of his chest as she buries into it to make her home, feel her hand in his, small and soft and perfect as she is.


	10. November 10th: Scar (NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Full version - very NSFW, minors do not interact

It isn’t often that they get a lie-in.

Mason lets his hand trace lazy shapes on Riona’s arm and she giggles slightly at the sensation, turning further into his chest as if she means to stay there.

His hand drifts up then, past her shoulder blade and up to her neck, where he traces the scar Murphy gifted her. His touch is barely a whisper, but she flinches as if he has raked his nails down a chalkboard.

He presses his lips to her forehead, keeps them there until she relaxes back into his arms with a small smile playing on lush lips that fill his every waking thought.

It takes no conscious thought at all to trail kisses down to that fucking scar on her neck and lave at it with his tongue, sucking gently at the pulse point close by until she starts to shake.

“Mason—” Her voice is breathy, and filled to the brim with _want_ , and he drinks some of it in with a kiss that is almost bruising, stealing her breath just as she has stolen—

“Let me take care of you, sweetheart.” His voice rumbles against her lips, and he doesn’t miss the skip of her heartbeat at the vibrations, and wonders if her heart will skip like that when she feels those same vibrations at her core.

Taking her ( _his_ ) shirt off over her wild curls is no mean feat, and her breathless giggles would make it worth it even if she _weren’t_ the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, with full breasts and lush, inviting curves.

His lips are drawn to the hollow of her throat like a moth to flame, and he absorbs the low moans she gives him when his skin burns hers like a brand.

She bucks her hips into him when he sucks at the soft skin around her nipple, and her moans grow louder, making him smile against her as his fingers blaze a path along her waistband.

He looks at her searchingly, and his grin is almost catlike when she nods vigorously.

Mason is hit with the thought that he cannot resist kissing her another moment, and he doesn’t _need_ to, because Riona’s tiny fingers have tangled in his hair and she is kissing him, licking deep into his mouth as she tugs on his hair with an insistence that makes him moan in turn.

For all her endearing, _maddening_ insistence, it is easy enough to break her hold on him and resume his quest downward, pausing at the long, jagged appendectomy scar at her navel.

He plants a small kiss at the left corner, feeling rather than hearing her gasp, and his lips and tongue work in tandem then, moving along the expanse of skin until her breathing is laboured and her eyes are half-closed, struggling to process the sensations.

“Eyes on me, sweetheart.”

Her breath is shallow as she tries to sit up and look at him, and he almost growls at the way she obeys even that simple command.

And then he lowers his tongue to her centre, and her answering cry is enough to make him want to _howl_.

Riona is tart and sweet on his tongue, and he lets her drown him, licking through her folds and looking her in the eye. Her hands tangle in his hair and stay there, and she wails, a jagged, broken thing, at the almost teasing pressure of his lips on hers.

Mason slips one finger inside of her and watches with some satisfaction as her head falls back, her body boneless for a moment, until he snarls a warning and she shoots back up. Heat zings down his spine and pools in his belly as she clenches around his finger, and he continues his steady pace, drawing out her pleasure as long as he can bear.

Her moans are a kind of symphony, more enticing and melodious than any of the shit Nate listens to, and she is almost dripping now, her whole body flushed and hazel eyes almost black. Two more fingers slide in now, taking position under his tongue as he devours her.

“Oh, fuck, _yes._ ” Riona is strung so tight now that his answering growl against her core is all that it takes to fracture her. Her thighs start to close around his ears, and he holds them open with his free hand, massaging the skin there as she trembles before she goes boneless under his ministrations, leisurely and consistent.

She is like a drug, and his voice sounds needy to his own ears as he instructs her, letting a breath ghost over her centre.

“One more for me, sweetheart.” Mason’s voice is deep as he urges her, _begs_ her, and he almost growls at the way she clenches around him at that.

“Mason—” Whatever she had been about to say is swallowed by a moan, throaty and _filthy_ , at the feel of his thumb against her clit, and she grabs desperately at his hair again to push him where she needs him. And he complies.

Mason could lose himself here, between her thighs, warm and sweet and all for him, and his deft fingers work together with his tongue to unravel her piece by piece. Riona’s hips buck up, seeking him and his warmth, and her moans ricochet off the walls and hit like bullets, landing on his skin and piercing through to his heart, to his _soul_.

When he sucks on her nub and crooks his fingers to beckon she comes screaming, chest raised to the sky and eyes rolled back like she is trying to see stars.

Her bliss is almost hypnotic, and Mason fucks her through it, still stealing kisses against skin slick with her own arousal as she looks on, still dazed but smile now widening. He takes his time licking her clean, licking any trace of her from his fingers and feeling his eyes flutter shut of their own accord as she watches him with growing impatience.

“Mason, I need—I _want_ —” She is frustrated now, unable to get the words out, and her hips buck up against him and he grins against her hip.

“Tell me, sweetheart.” His voice is deep, husky, _wanting_ , and he can feel her intake of breath at the vibrations.

“I want _you_.”

Whatever Mason had thought Riona would say (and she could be _filthy_ when she wanted to be, almost enough to make _him_ blush) that wasn’t it, and it is enough to shock him into compliance, moving up her body to let her taste herself as he kisses the breath from her. He shucks off the soft pyjama bottoms which now feel far too tight, and it’s almost too much, how she feels in his arms and under his hands. He moves behind her and lays her back against his chest, and he hisses as she wiggles back against his length.

“You have me.” And with one, smooth thrust he is inside her, and it feels the nearest thing to _home_ he has ever had or ever wanted.

“All of me.”

Mason hooks her leg around his waist and _oh_ , this angle is _much_ better, closer even if it still isn’t close enough. Her loud moans merge with his low groans, and she is so responsive, so _sensitive_ still, that it only takes a few more thrusts against that spot inside her before she shatters around him with a cry.

The smile she gives him is blinding, and his heart and hips stutter, mind blank for a moment before he feels the blood rushing in his ears and his hips move of their own accord, pounding hard and fast and _deep_ , wanting her to consume him whole.

She cups his cheek and tries to focus her eyes to look at him, urging him on.

“That’s it, baby, come for me.” Her eyes are hazy, but there is an adoration there that makes his heart swell, and his breath feels heavy in his throat.

 _I love you_.

And like that, at her command he is drowning and she’s his life-raft, and he holds her close to his chest as he stills his movements and presses open-mouthed kisses to her shoulder.

When he resurfaces, she is crying quietly, and his heart hurtles back down from the stratosphere and slams into his feet.

“Sweetheart—” There’s a fear there that he hasn’t felt in a long time, something deep and almost primal and he turns her to face him, searching for any source of pain—

And she giggles fondly and kisses him through her tears, and it is only when she licks into his mouth and lets him taste the salty-sweetness of her lips that he realises he must have said it out loud.


	11. November 11th: Silver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Earlier in the relationship)

It doesn’t take him long to find out why Riona won’t be parted from his most hated nemesis, the silver hatchback.

It also doesn’t take him long to find a fae with abilities that lend themselves to extricating film and tape from machinery, or to threaten them into submission as they cower completing the task. It is with a quiet reverence that he is now holding _the_ cassette, wondering at how something so small had such a firm hold on her and her actions.

 _Maybe we are as similar as they say_.

Regardless, he makes copies of it, for safety, and tenderly wraps one of the discs with _the_ cassette and stashes the gift on the top of the bookshelves in her living room while she bickers with Nate in the kitchen.

–

Riona’s birthday party, the first shared with Unit Bravo, is a noisy affair, as he could have expected – partly because she has an almost supernatural ability to make people feel at ease; and partly because Felix has discovered that Spotify has a repeat button. But Mason doesn’t mind so much that Felix has stolen speakers from God knows where when he is next to Riona, close enough to make her flush and feel the heat from her skin, even if he feels compelled to move away a little when Agent Lovelace enters the room.

When the time comes for presents, the others give her things that make her coo. Adam gives her a small switchblade with a carved handle, _for protection_ , Nate a finely-bound book, Felix a framed picture of the team—the only photo Mason has ever stood still for—and Rebecca’s gift of perfume makes Riona smile widely (although, mercifully, she doesn’t test it here with four vampires present).

Mason feels himself get more and more wound up, bouncing his leg up and down with infinitesimally small movements that still manage to catch Nate’s eye, as she unwraps the present and—

“ _Oh_.” Her exhale is little more than a breath, and her hands shake slightly as she turns the cassette over in her hands. When he dares to look at her face, her eyes are bright with unshed tears, and he can’t describe the feeling bubbling in his chest ~~and isn’t sure he wants to~~.

“Oh, _Mason_.” And now she is flinging her arms around him like he has presented her the moon and all the silver and gold in the world, holding him tightly to her, and he smiles slightly into her hair before schooling his features into a mask of practised disinterest when she pulls away.

“So—you gonna get rid of that monstrosity now?” He drawls lazily, long fingers tracing a pattern on the inside of her wrist when he’s sure Agent Lovelace isn’t looking.

“Hmm, I don’t know.” Riona hums thoughtfully, eyes sparking with mischief and something else, hidden before he can question it. “It still has some uses.”

Her smirk is the only gift he needs in return.


	12. November 12th: Caught (NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

Mason hopes that the wild goose chase he’s sent Adam on will give them enough time.

Riona’s eyes widening as he takes off his shirt make him grin as he moves to the centre of the training room, to just within striking distance.

“Let’s have some fun, shall we?”

But Riona proves frustratingly difficult to distract – she’s _actually_ taking the training seriously, parrying his blows with surprising ease, and he withdraws a moment to look her up and down.

“You’ve got better. Much better.” He’s too shocked to hide the pride in his voice, but the heat radiating from her cheeks reminds him of his purpose.

“We could be having an entirely different type of fun.” There is no mistaking his smirk, and the flush in her cheeks intensifies before she raises her eyebrows with a practised, false innocence that makes him roll his eyes.

“You mean to tell me that you don’t think training is fun?” Mason lowers his eyes to the “o” of her gasp as she speaks and smirks, before redoubling his efforts.

Riona starts to tire, but the set of her jaw is stubborn, even as her chest heaves and he catches her tracking the way the muscles in his shoulders flex, and he decides then that there is an easier way to make this more fun.

Mason grapples with her, and lets her flip him onto his back, landing with a soft grunt and a grin at the feeling of her against him. She smiles triumphantly as he lets her pin both of his hands above his head, before it seems to dawn on her just how close they really are.

He shifts restlessly beneath her, and when his thigh brushes between her legs, her eyes darken and he can see that she is _lost_.

The kiss she grants him is breathless, combative in its own way, and he is burning from the inside out. The fluttering of her lashes against his cheek tells him that she is as overwhelmed as he is, as surely as the hitch in her voice when she tries to speak.

“Where—”

“Yours is closer.” The words don’t come as easily as they usually would, and he kisses her again to distract himself from the tightness in his throat.

Mason doesn’t remember how they get to her room, and he doesn’t care, barely leaving her lips for a moment as he hovers over her on the bed, divesting them of their clothes and laying the weight of his body on top of her—

Until, suddenly, he isn’t. Suddenly _she_ is on top of _him_ , and the change in position and _angle_ makes him groan.

“Sweetheart—”

“Just relax.” She whispers in his ear, and he is very much _not_ relaxed, the tension in his belly coiling tighter with every puff of air as she speaks, with every whisper of a kiss she trails down his torso, with every flick of her tongue against his too-sensitive skin.

She stops just short of his length then and smiles up at him, sinfully pretty even now. “And don’t touch until I tell you.”

Mason doesn’t remember what he was trying to say when she took him in her mouth, only that the words strangled in his throat and it was all he could do to breathe. She looks up at him as she bobs her head and _fuck_ , there is lust there but there is something else there too, something which makes his cheeks heat and his hands curl into fists at his sides.

And then she does _something_ with her tongue that makes him see stars, and he fights the urge to twist away from the sensation which overpowers his senses.

“Oh, _fuck_ , sweetheart, that’s—that’s it.” He is _babbling_ , and he’s never done that, not with her, not with _anyone_ , and she stays for a minute longer, one that feels both spun out for an eternity and cut frustratingly short. She leaves him with a pop, moving back up his body so he can taste himself on her, moaning into his mouth like was she the one who had just had her mind blown and swallowing his frustrated _whine_.

She straddles him, fumbling slightly as she takes him in hand and sinks onto him, and their moans merge into each other, becoming something new and beautiful in the air that is already heavy with their scents.

Once more she takes the lead, and she is almost rough, riding him like he is hers (and how right she would be) and rolling her hips in a rhythm designed to wreck him before—

 _Before she stops moving_. She is still, perfectly still, with a smile so smug he could fucking strangle her if he could just figure out how his muscles were supposed to work.

“Sweetheart.” He manages to croak out as he looks up at her, eyes wide and the rest of him _tense_.

“Sweetheart, what are you—”

“We’re _having fun_.” Her grin is wicked at that, and she leans forward slightly to bite his shoulder.

He shifts under her, hoping to spur her into action, only for her eyes to darken and her eyebrow to raise slightly.

“I could stop?”

“You wouldn’t.” Mason is sure of that – or he thinks he is, until her eyes darken more and she leans in to growl in his ear.

“Try me.”

He doesn’t, staying still even when the effort of it starts to make him quiver, and she smiles into the column of his throat.

“Good boy. Now you touch me.” And then the dam bursts.

One of his hands tangles in her curls to pull her into a bruising kiss, while the other swirls at her clit as she starts to ride him again, harder and deeper than before, and it isn’t long before their rhythms begin to falter, hands gripping desperately at each other’s skin.

“Sweetheart, I—I can’t—” His voice is broken, even to his own ears, and the sound of it makes her tighten around him even more, making his senses blaze and his chest constrict as she pleads with him.

“Wait for me, baby.” He thinks she says through her moans, and he would wait for her until the end of time if he had to, but it only takes a few more rough, sloppy thrusts into her warmth for her to shatter around him, and all of his senses are overwhelmed by her as she drags him over the edge with her.

When he can convince himself to think again (and why would he think, when she is around him, consuming his every sense?), he can hear Adam yelling for the pair of them, but he doesn’t care.

She traces patterns on the planes of his chest as she lays on him, not willing to let him leave her just yet.

“Training was fun.” He tries to kiss her smirk away, feeling it grow into a grin under his lips, and he’ll endure whatever Adam throws at him (maybe literally) for more moments like these.


	13. November 13th: Burn

Riona’s cry of pain cuts into Mason’s senses, and he runs inside to her.

“What—”

Riona is letting fly a string of curses that would make a sailor blush, cradling her hand and looking angrily at the still-hot casserole dish.

Mason takes her hand in his without speaking, nerves still tight enough to shatter, and brings her over to the sink. He puts her hand under the cold tap, snarling quietly in warning when she tries to remove it as he turns away (and he has to force himself not to notice the way that makes her pulse skip in favour of finding salve for the burn).

He feels every wince and twinge as if they were his own, and when he has finished binding her finger he takes her into his arms and places a kiss on the crown of her head, feeling her hands tighten in the back of his shirt.


	14. November 14th: Wild

He’s never minded before when Unit Alpha have dropped by – not like Adam does, anyway, with his stiff shoulders and deep scowl. Sure, they’re loud, and he goes through about a pack of cigarettes in an afternoon trying in vain to dull his senses, but they have good stories and they occupy Felix for a little while.

But since they met Riona, and Alpha found out that Mason and Riona were…well, whatever it was now (more than fucking, but how much more he doesn’t want to guess), Mason has found himself tense every time they’ve come.

Charm comes as easy to Riona as breathing – it’s one of the things that he finds appealing about her. And she has always made her attachment to him very clear, however bizarre that might be. He _trusts_ her.

Still, Mason cannot shake the irritation that washes over him when Tane wraps a chocolate tendril around his index finger and says something to make her blush, and Mason leaves the room, not certain of anything except the fact that he _can’t do this now_.

He finds Adam in the training room, as frustrated with Unit Alpha as he is, but for entirely different reasons, and clears his inexplicably dry throat to alert the agent to his presence.

“Up to spar?” A deliberately stupid question with a predictable response – Adam throws him some binding with a raised eyebrow, nothing more, and then he has leapt into battle.

It’s intense and a little dirty, as it always is with Adam – Mason never aches as thoroughly as he does when he’s being put through his paces by the best fighter he has ever seen – but Mason has been able to land a few good hits, and for the first time in about fifty years he lands a clean hit, enough to make Adam stumble and yield.

And when Mason straightens up, he sees Riona standing there, and now he _knows_ that you can get drunk on even half-victories, sauntering to her and dipping her into a kiss, feeling her heartbeat run _wild_ as she runs her hands over his chest.

He spends long enough stealing the breath from her lungs that Adam has long since scoffed and left the training room. grumbling something about how he should show his face or brief Lesedi or some shit, and now they are simply holding each other close, listening to each other’s hearts race.

“I was worried about you.” Riona confesses into his chest. Mason can’t help the tightening of his fingers on her waist at that, nor the way his heart _sings_.

“Why?”

“I always worry about you.” Her voice is quiet and so very honest, and he feels his heart constrict in his chest.

“You don’t need to. I’ll be fine.” His voice cracks on the last word, and he presses a chaste kiss to her forehead rather than dig himself a deeper hole.

“I know.” She tilts her face expectantly up for a kiss, then, and how can he refuse her?


End file.
